Pierre: Check it out! Our friends at the Chewy.com blogger outreach program sent us something to taste test.

They are 100% beef liver from Evangers. The photographer likes that they are a single-source food, which is good to have available if anyone eating them has a sensitive digestive system.

Ashton and Pierre: We don’t care what’s in them. They smell good, and we want to taste!

Ashton: This thing looks really big. Maybe it was meant for a much bigger cat than me.

Holy cat! I have to chew hard to eat this huge thing!

Yes, Ashton took the whole treat while we were demonstrating its size and proceeded to chew and chew and chew and chew until she managed to eat it all. While she was under observation to make sure she didn’t choke on it, Newton got impatient and found the open container and stole a big treat, too.

Newton: *bite* *drop* *bite* *drop* This is TOO BIG!

Pierre: This isn’t as exciting as I thought it was going to be.

These didn’t cut as easily as expected. It turns out that they will cut reasonably easily one direction, but not against the grain of the dried meat. The treats could also be soaked in water to reconstitute them, but treats are open-and-eat affairs around here, so we stuck with leaving them dry to simulate the way that we would normally eat them.

Newton: Thank Cod. I had started to think I was going to have to order out for pizza.

Final opinion from the cats: Ashton and Newton were two enthusiastic paws up. Pierre decided that it smelled better than it tasted. And the photographer decided that the oversized treats that can’t be broken by hand are tasty occasionally, but aren’t a good solution if you need a quick treat before the peeps head out the door to go somewhere.

Thanks for sharing this extra, liver-flavored bit of holiday cheer with us, Chewy.com!

This month, Chewy.com offered us chicken breast Halo Liv-a-Littles for review. Knowing that Ashton loves anything chicken, we agreed. These looked really good because they contain real chicken breast, not byproduct or anything. The ingredient list is: Freeze-dried chicken breast, Marinade (sodium phosphate, salt, carrageenan). A lot of us would prefer to avoid carrageenan if we can, so the head peep sent Halo an email asking about what the purpose of carrageenan was in the treats. Olga from Halo responded quickly with a return email that said:

Thank you for your question. Carrageenan in our Liv-a-Littles treats…..this ingredient is a small part of the marinade (sodium phosphate, salt, carrageenan). As a marinade it is used to prepare the meat in the pre-cook process and discarded before freeze-drying.

If you are looking for a completely Carrageenan-free product, our Salmon or Beef flavored Liv-a-Littles are not marinated so do not contain Carrageenan.

So for any label-watchers, there’s the scoop from Halo. We weren’t going to let  carrageenan stand between us and chicken treats.

Pierre: Whoa, check this out! You can go ahead and open it any time now.

Pierre: This thing is huge!

The Liv-a-Littles come in really large chunks. Maybe this is because these are treats for both cats and dogs, and cat-sized treats don’t work for dogs. But the big pieces require some breaking up for the cats.That’s not a bad thing, necessarily, but it does generate a lot of chicken dust. (The cats helped clean up the chicken dust later.)

Pierre: Who invited you to this photo shoot, Ashton?

What came next was such a frenzy of grabbing freeze-dried chicken treats from fingers that all of the photos came out blurry. We were all moving fast, trying to score as much of the good stuff as we could.

Then the head peep got the idea to try to get Ashton onto the scale with them. We think she has lost some weight, but she’s afraid of the scale and won’t stand on it so we can find out how much.

Pierre: There’s a scale on the floor. And it’s giving us treats.

Ashton: I think it’s a trick.

Needless to say, Ashton still hasn’t been weighed, but she did steal treats off of the scale.

Newton: I don’t know what your problem is, Ash. You go where the tasty treats are. And these are very tasty!

We give six paws up for Halo Liv-a-Littles treats., and we can’t wait to see that canister come back out next time! (But Ashton would like it to be far away from the scale, please.)

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Chewy.com gave us this product for free to review. The opinions in the review are entirely our own.

Newton: What’s in the package? We heard that there were some Natural Balance Platefulls on the way from Chewy.com for us to sample. Is this it?

Hurry, hurry, before Pierre or Ashton wakes up. I don’t want to have to share with them!

Do I have to pick just one? They all look so good!

Umm… oops. Okay, how about the Turkey, Chicken and Duck flavor?

The first ingredients on the label for this food are turkey broth, turkey, chicken liver, duck, and chicken. No mystery meat. They also contain no corn, soy, or wheat. Also, no carrageenan, which is hard to find.

Newton: Hey, who invited you, Pierre? Get your own plate!

Ashton: Too bad this isn’t smell-o-vision. This Chicken and Salmon Forumula in Gravy is amazing.

At Newton’s request, Pierre got his own plate of Chicken and Giblets Formula in Gravy, and soon, there was nothing but the steady slurping sound of happy cats eating.

Newton won a special award as messiest eater. This illustrates why he usually eats from a much deeper bowl.

Pierre: Are you going to finish that?

Everyone: I want to taste yours. Switch bowls!

The Natural Balance Platefulls were a hit. We’re still in the process of transitioning from a dry food diet to a soft food diet, and this is a lot more than we usually eat at a sitting. We ate most of the three packets we had during the taste test, and we liked them so much, we will have to paw wrestle to see who gets the fourth one for breakfast tomorrow.

These are also packaged in handy plastic packets instead of cans. While our paws can’t open either one, cats like us who live in hurricane-prone areas and and have evacuation kits will benefit from having these lightweight packets instead of cans.

Overall, we give the Natural Balance Platefulls six paws up! Thanks for introducing us to these, Chewy.com!

Disclaimer: This food was provided to us free of charge for review purposes, but the opinions are our own.

The The Natural Pet Company asked if we would like to review their cat toys and catnip, and since we are experts on both toys and catnip, we said we would love to try them out.

Newton and Pierre: What’s this?

Pierre: It smells like catnip… maximum strength.

Pierre: Yessssss!

Newton: It smells good. But how do open it? I don’t have thumbs.

Newton: Ooooh… new toys? For me?

Photographer: Wait, wait, I want a photo of —

Newton: ARGH! No waiting! This is awesome!

Newton: It has a string, and I’m going to undo it since you’re so slow!

Strangely, the string wasn’t threaded through the end of the stick.

Newton: It wasn’t my fault!

It was easy to thread through and tie into a simple knot, whether it was Newton’s fault or not.

Newton: Mine!

Pierre: This has feathers! I’m giving it the bitey!

Newton: The toy package also contained this thing that had ribbons on it. Ribbons! And a bell! OMC!

Pierre: And there was a mouse made all out of stuff that feels like the sisal on my cat tree. This thing rules!

Newton: I’m not sharing!

Newton: Wait, what are you doing to the toy with the ribbon. Ooh, that smells good…

Newton: I thought this toy was good before. Now it’s just dreamy.

Pierre: I admit it. I inhale catnip. A lot.

Ashton: This was so tempting even I came out of scaredy-cat hiding to play with it!

Newton: If there’s catnip in the air, there it must be time for a smackdown!

The toys and catnip from The Natural Pet Company were a real success, and as you can see, everybody enjoyed them. The toys were a lot more durable than they looked at first glance, which we appreciate, since we are kind of rough with toys. Thanks to the Natural Pet Company for the opportunity to give them a test drive. We’ll be getting a lot more fun play time out of these toys and catnip!

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Disclosure: The Natural Pet Company provided toys and catnip for review, but all opinions are our own.